Rear end collisions typically result in a whiplash injury.
Whiplash involves a sudden movement of the head that can lead to the tearing of muscles, ligaments, and other soft tissues. It is a common result of a rear-end automobile collision, and can happen at low as well as high speeds.
A new study by Hanna Sale and Annika Isberg, Delayed Temporo-mandibular Joint Pain and Dysfuntion Induced by Whiplash Trauma, 138 J. Am. Dental Assn. 1084 (2007) reports that one in three people will experience TMJ, pain in their temporo-mandibular joint, within one year following a whiplash injury. This is at an incidence rate of five times higher than what is found in the general population. For some reason, women experience this more that men.
If you are invollved in a rear end collsion or any collision involving a whiplash injury, and you feel you need the help of a personal injury lawyer, be sure to find an attorney with litigation experience.
A recent Kentucky jury decided that it could. The Plaintiff had his vehicle towed to an Auto Clinic twice for overheating. The second time, the repair shop owner decided to install a rebuilt engine. Two days later, the plaintiff left his car idling for about 30 minutes while he was sitting in it.
A fire erupted in the engine compartment, engulfing him in flames. He suffered third-degree burns over 45 percent of his body, including his airway, and died three days later.
Two daughters, as co-administrators of the estate, sued the repair shop and its owner and operator, alleging failure to diagnose and repair the overheating problem. Plaintiffs alleged defendants’ failure to correct the problem resulted in automatic transmission fluid spraying onto the hot manifold and spreading to the gas lines, causing the fire.
Defendants contended the fire was caused by a defect in the vehicle’s intermittent cooling fan.
The jury awarded plaintiffs about $3.26 million. Florida has similar laws for liability of repair shops. If you know of a similar accident, be sure to hire an experienced board certified trial attorney that knows how to sort out the facts.
Whether you have been injured in a car collision, a slip and fall accident, as the result of equipment failure, by a doctor’s negligence or in any other way, you must during the very earliest stages take great care in everything you say and do.
As you are sorting out your options on whether or not to hire an attorney, the one thing to remember is do not sign any papers from an insurance company and do not give a recorded statement until you have either consulted an attorney or are sure that you will not need one. It is a sad thing when I get calls from people who have lingering injuries but have signed away their rights in a hurry to recieve some compensation for their claims.
Never again will your memory of the key events be as fresh as they are on the date of injury. So keep a journal and take pictures. It will be very helpful to your case to keep notes, photos, or other evidence that will trigger your memory.
A blowout of a tire, or rapid pressure decrease in the remaining core, is often associated with a loss of tire tread and drastically increases a vehicle’s chance to roll over. When the rear tire of a vehicle suffers a blowout, controlling the vehicle becomes very difficult, especially at highway speeds.
This is what caused a Putnam County motorist to die Monday when she was pinned beneath a sport utility vehicle that crashed after a tire blowout, according to the Florida Highway Patrol.
Jerusha Mary Hendricks, 34, of Palatka was southbound on Florida 207 in St. Johns County when the vehicle’s right rear tire blew out. The SUV traveled onto the road shoulder, rotated and overturned twice, ejecting Hendricks. The SUV came to rest on all four wheels, with her under, according to the report.
Defective tires can be attributed to a number of factors, including:
- Poor design
- Faulty or incompatible materials
- Incorrect production processes
- Improper storage, including temperature and humidity inconsistencies
Learn about the common tire defects that threaten American drivers, and what victims can do to recover damages after an accident. A board certified trial attorney can file defective tires lawsuits for victims harmed by tire detreading and tire recalls in Jacksonville, and North Florida. If you believe poor or defective tires may have contributed to your injuries or those of your passengers, or if you feel a tire recall negatively affected you, contact Michael E. Seelie, PA today.
In 2004, AAA Foundation for Traffic Safety released a study on vehicle-related road debris. The study revealed that it caused 25,000 accidents – and nearly 100 deaths – each year.
Here it is almost four years later, and I am still seeing tragic accidents that have occurred because there was junk in the road.
The most common way that road debris causes an accident is by forcing another driver to lose control of their vehicle, either by trying to avoid the debris or by actually striking it. Recently, I had a case in which the police had stopped the traffic to clean up the debris, when this family was struck from the back by another vehicle who did not see the road block.
Finding the responsible party can be tricky. In some cases, the government may be at fault but in others, the debris may have been cause by a passing vehicle and hard to pin down without witnesses. Hiring an experienced personal injury attorney may be neccessary if there were injuries caused by the accident.
Here are some things drivers should do to avoid an accident:
- Secure your load and re-check while driving
- If you’re behind a vehicle that’s suspicious looking, drop back
- Move into different lane
- Look around you to see what your options are in case the worst happens
- Sometimes, it’s better to drive over small debris than swerve to avoid it, which can cause you to lose control of car.
It happened just before 3 in the morning. A family traveling from Disney to a family reunion were just 10 minutes from their destination when a drunk driver going the wrong direction on the interstate slammed head on into the unsuspecting vehicle. No one in either car was wearing a seat belt. The drunk driver and the mother of the other family were killed instantly.
But granting that in our society an adult woman has the freedom to drink to impairment, she should have refrained from driving. As it was very late, or very early depending on your preference, it may have been unlikely that the woman would have waited another two hours or more to sober up. The thing to do is hand the keys over to someone better suited for the responsibility, or call a taxi.
